Abstract
To better constrain the response of Earth’s climate system to continuing emissions, it is essential to turn to the past. A key advance would be to understand the transition in Earth’s climate response to changes in orbital forcing during the 'mid-Pleistocene transition' (900 to 1200 thousand years ago) and in particular the role of greenhouse gases. Unravelling such key linkages between the carbon cycle, ice sheets, atmosphere and ocean behavior is vital for society to better design effective mitigation and adaptation strategies. Only ice cores contain the unique and quantitative information about past climate forcing and atmospheric responses. But the ice providing essential evidence about past mechanisms of climate change more than 1 Ma ago required for our understanding of these changes (termed the “Oldest Ice” core), has not been found to date.
The consortium Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice (BE-OI), formed by 14 European institutions, takes on this challenge to prepare the ground for obtaining 1.5 million year old ice from East Antarctica. BE-OI has the objectives to:
- support the site selection through acquisition and synthesis of all necessary information on Antarctic sites through specific geophysical surveys and the use of fast drilling tools to qualify sites and validate the age of their ice;
- select and evaluate the optimum drill site for the future “Oldest Ice” core project and establish a science and management plan for a future drilling;
- coordinate the technical and scientific planning to ensure the availability of the technical means to implement suitable drill systems and analytical methodologies for a future ice-core drilling, and of well-trained personnel to operate them successfully;
- establish the budget and the financial background for a future deep-drilling campaign;
- embed the scientific aims of an “Oldest Ice” core project within the wider paleoclimate data and modelling communities through international and cross-disciplinary cooperation.
Durata del progetto/Project duration
1 October 2016 - 30 September 2019
Unibo Team Leader/Responsabile scientifico/Responsabile locale
Luca Vittuari, Carlo Barbante
Responsabile scientifico per il Dipartimento
Luca Vittuari
Coordinator/Coordinatore/Responsabile Nazionale
Alfred Wegener Institut Helmholtz Zentrum für Polar und Meeresforschung (AWI, Germany)
Partnership
- BE-OI is the world's largest consortium of expertise and infrastructure for the International Partnership for Ice Core Sciences' (IPICS) goal to find the oldest ice core.
Ten countries are represented by 14 of Europe's internationally-respected research institutions, a globally unique concentration of scientific expertise and infrastructure for ice-core investigations
- Alfred Wegener Institut Helmholtz Zentrum für Polar und Meeresforschung (AWI, Germany)
Olaf Eisen (Coordinator), Frank Wilhelms (Drilling technology), Maria Eden (Project Manager)
- Institut Polaire Français Paul Emile Victor (IPEV, France), Jérôme Chappellaz
- Agenzia nazionale per le nuove tecnologie, l'energia e lo sviluppo economico sostenibile (ENEA, Italy), Massimo Frezzotti
- Centre National de la Recherché Scientifique (CNRS, France), Laboratoire de glaciologie et géophysique de l'environnement (LGGE), Olivier Alemany (Rapid Access Drilling), Dr. Catherine Ritz (Ice Sheet Modelling)
- Natural Environment Research Council - British Antarctic Survey (BAS, United Kingdom), Robert Mulvaney
- Universiteit Utrecht – Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research (UU-IMAU, The Netherlands), Roderik van de Wal
- Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI, Norway), Elisabeth Isaksson
- Stockholms Universitet (SU, Sweden), Margareta Hansson
- Universität Bern (UBERN, Switzerland), Hubertus Fischer
- Università di Bologna (UNIBO, Italy), Carlo Barbante, Luca Vittuari
- University of Cambridge (UCAM, United Kingdom), Eric Wolff
- Kobenhavns Universitet (UCPH, Denmark), Dorthe Dahl-Jensen
- Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB, Belgium), Frank Pattyn
- Lunds Universitet (ULUND, Sweden), Raimund Muscheler
Finanziamento/Contribution/Budget
EU Total Contribution 2 223 000 EURO, Overall budget 2 594 000 EURO
Sito web
https://www.beyondepica.eu/en